Live WITH the Earth (not ON it)

Before I delineate and describe the ten lessons that the Earth teaches us, let us become aware of some basic facts about our home planet, which we may not have thought about or paid much attention.

For starters, we should erase from our minds the mistaken notion that the Earth is an inanimate object and view it as an intense and intricate process.

In quantum mechanics, the boundary between animate and inanimate is fading fast. According to scientist James Lovelock, “There is no clear distinction anywhere on the Earth’s surface between living and non-living matter. There is merely a hierarchy of intensity going from the material environment of the rocks and the atmosphere to the living cells.” If you focus on your body for a minute, you will easily understand this concept.

The dynamic process of movement, flow, change, and transformation occurring in our bodies is also happening within the Earth.

Ardent environmentalist Paul Hawken explains:

“One quadrillion cells make up a human being, and 90% of them are bacteria, fungi, yeasts, and other microbes without which we could not survive…within our body is the backstory of the earth four billion years ago, the molecular chains, chemical compounds, simple bacteria, and salty fluids that wash our eyes and surround our cells forming a compendium of life that preceded us. We have always been a work in progress, a cumulative animal, a chimeric fusion of different organisms from the beginning of life.”

Prominent proponent of Creation Spirituality, Matthew Fox, writes about the fascination, excitement, and awe that cosmology causes in him:

“The earth — the animals and plants, the flowers and forests, the fauna and landscapes, the birds and the fishes, the creepy crawly things that burrow in our gardens and compost piles — fascinates us and bless us. They too have something to tell us, indeed something to reveal to us about our failures, about our sins, and about our capacity for beauty and blessing.”

This vision of Earth as a living process will help us to replace the unconscious notion that we are living on the Earth with the awareness that we are living with the Earth. In this context, changing something so simple as a preposition — on and with — can have a profound impact on how we experience and manage life as earthlings.

For example, living on the Earth makes us users and abusers of the resources of the Earth, but living with the Earth can make us co-creators and collaborators on a cosmic journey of hope.

It is about recognizing the fact that our health and our well-being are closely tied to the health and well-being of our home planet.

As Eckhart Tolle eloquently says:

“You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the Universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle!”

I know, when we look with our superficial eyes, it seems like we are living on the earth, because that is how it feels. I don’t blame you for thinking like that. But if you look at it with a spiritual vision, you will realize that you are living with the Earth, because you are part of the Earth.

Everything about the Earth is in dynamic motion and always changing, despite the erroneous impression of its static permanence.

We need to move away from our ancestors’ notion of a permanent Earth to the modern concept of geologic impermanence accepted by all reputed geologists.

(from Cosmic Kindergarten: Earthly Lessons for a Heavenly Life)